This Week’s “SNL” Offers a Lesson in Check-Splitting Etiquette

This one goes to an unexpected place

"SNL" check-splitting sketch
Owen Wilson has some pointers on splitting a check.
NBCUniversal

When dining out with friends and family, the process of splitting a check can be more awkward than it seems. For comedy writers, though, the process of splitting a check can be the key to something hilarious. The latest season of I Think You Should Leave featured a memorable sketch based on the concept of “credit card roulette,” and the 2019 SNL sketch “Cheques” also included a bit about check-splitting.

The apex of comedic check-splitting bits may well have come via a sketch cut for time from Saturday’s SNL, however. The premise is relatively simple: a group of people are settling the bill after a dinner, and it becomes clear that one of them (played by Owen Wilson) has ordered an increasingly bizarre array of foods — including a few things that seem more like grocery orders than entrees.

And then things take a turn. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say that things take several turns, leaving the sketch in a very different place where it ends than where it began. You might think you’re watching a sketch about an increasingly hapless and toxic man having both qualities slowly revealed to his cohorts; as it turns out, there’s something very different afoot.

The InsideHook Newsletter.

News, advice and insights for the most interesting person in the room.